Russell James O’Brien – Record Of Tape Recorded Interview I

1578    “Right.  The time is eight fifty-nine am and that is on Thursday the tenth of April two thousand and eight.  We are in an interview room at Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters.  I am Detective Constable, one, five, seven, eight, Andrew GIERC from the Leicestershire Major Crime Unit.  Would you kindly give me your full name and date of birth please?”
Reply    “Yeah, it’s Russell James O’BRIEN, twenty-six, eleven, seventy”.
1578    “Thank you very much.  As you know Russell this is your second visit to Force Headquarters this week.  You are here voluntarily as a significant witness to assist with the Portuguese Authorities in the investigation of the disappearance of Madeleine McCANN, which occurred on the evening of Thursday the third of May two thousand and seven in Portugal.  You have given previous interviews with us on, it was Tuesday the eighth, wasn’t it, two days ago?”

Reply    “Umm”.
1578    “And from those interviews we have compiled a statement in respect of the content of those interviews.  And what I would like you to do now is, I will present you with the statement and I will invite you to read through it and we can alter, amend, add, take out anything you need”.
Reply    “Okay, okay”.
1578    “So it is really to your satisfaction”.
Reply    “Alright”.
1578    “It will be your statement”.
Reply    “Uh hu”.
1578    “So if, it is quite lengthy, there are about nine or ten pages”.
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “And we can, as we go through we can take note of any modifications or alterations required”.
Reply    “Right, okay.  Do you want me to read this out loud or just to?”
1578    “You can do if you wish it is entirely up to you”.
Reply    “(O’BRIEN read through the statement).  Erm, yeah, the first page, is, erm, is fine.  I suppose the only addition was that, was an explanation of why I, why I would look Jane’s statement.  And that was because there was a reference in my original statement for a period of time that was not covered in my interview.  That would be the only thing that I would have”.
1578    “So that is an addition?”
Reply    “It says, erm, ‘I have been given the opportunity to refresh my memory from the statement made from Jane TANNER’, she is not actually legally my wife we are just, we are just partners, erm, ‘and I’ve been allowed to see the documents’.  I asked to see her document because my original statement to the PJ, erm, made reference, I think for the Monday to the Wednesday especially, to Jane’s and it was not written in any detail in mine.  Does that make sense?”
1578    “I think so”.
Reply    “Yeah, so I just, I just, the clarification for why I’m seeing Jane’s statement was that the three days of, of the holiday were really a reference to her statement in my statement.  But, apart from that, the rest of page one is fine.  I can confirm we moved down to Exeter on the third of January, I can’t be more specific at the bottom, but.  In the second paragraph, at the start, ‘I am aware that Matt’, erm, I suppose I’d just have it clarified that, erm, it says that, erm, ‘Dave is quite certain of what he expects of things and quite aware of his consumer rights, et cetera’.  Erm, I think it would just be worthwhile, that the reason I brought that up was I’d imagine that the people at MARK WARNER may have, erm, probably in London or their Head Office, would have thought that, erm, you know, that, that, that this was a, erm, a rather annoying email, in the fact that they had been copied back in on Matt’s reply, erm, it may have just irritated a few people at, at, erm, at their office.  Erm, there’s a, an error in the paragraph that says ‘This was the first holiday that we have been on with the McCANN family’, that’s true.  Erm, it said ‘We had been due to go away as couples to Greece in two thousand and six’, erm, Matt and Rachael, Dave and Fiona and myself and Jane did go to Greece in two thousand and six, it was actually, erm, tut, we were due to go away with the McCANNs in the Autumn of two thousand and five to Majorca but pulled out because Jane as heavily pregnant with, erm, was heavily pregnant with Evie”.
1578    “’This was the first holiday we’d been on with the McCANN family’?”
Reply    “Yeah, that, that’s true, but it’s the next statement that’s wrong”.
1578    “’We were due to go away was couples’?”
Reply    “We did go away as couples to Greece but the McCANNs weren’t with us, it was with the rest of the group, the other three couples”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “Erm, and Jane was heavily pregnant for a holiday in September two thousand and five to Majorca, where Dave and Fi did go away with the McCANNs and also with Tara and, actually, I think it’s Stuart GOLD rather than Andrew GOLD”.
1578    “Tara and Stuart GOLD?”
Reply    “It’s Stuart GOLD, I think actually I said Andrew, it’s actually Stuart”.
Reply    “And the rest, like I said, is fine.  And the rest of the second page is, is, is fine”.
1578    “Okay, it is down to?”
Reply    “Yeah, the paragraph ending ‘In relation to (inaudible).  And the rest of that page seems, seems fine.  Erm, page three”.
1578    “This is where we go out of synch a little, I’m afraid, there was an error in printing”.
Reply    “Alright, so it starts, at my page three it says ‘Dianne WEBSTER’?”
1578    “Yes, I’ve got that”.
Reply    “Have you got that?”
1578    “Yeah”.
Reply    “Erm, the first three paragraphs are fine.  I think, I suppose, the only comment is, when I’m talking about Charlotte PENNINGTON in the fifth paragraph, erm, I said that she, ‘I believe she looked after Dave and Fiona’s kids’, then, then there’s a separate, a sort of a separate sentence there.  Erm, and it might be worth clarifying that, at least in popular Press, she erm, she, there was a report that she said she saw Kate and Gerry at the Airport, but I think she’s, and I don’t think that would have been possible, because we had left the Airport on the coach with her, so I think she’s probably confusing that with, with one of us.  So that’s, that’s only a report from the popular Press rather than anything that she said”.
1578    “So how do you wish us to word that?”
Reply    “I suppose, erm, ‘I believe she looked after Fiona and Dave’s kids’, full stop, erm, ‘In the media at least she has reported seeing Kate and Gerry at FARO Airport on our arrival, but I don’t think, I think she’s mistaken because they had not arrived by then’”.  I mean, it, it is potentially, theoretically possible that she was nipping in and out of the bus, but I don’t think she would have, erm, they were, they were a good hour landing after us and we weren’t extensively delayed at the Airport, from my recollection, it seem, probably less like”.
1578    “So they arrived some time after you?”
Reply    “Yeah, I think they, they were, they were landing about a full hour after us, but I think by the time we’d got luggage out and we were on the coach, they were actually coming by taxi anyway, so I don’t think they would have been expecting to meet anyone from MARK WARNER, erm, because they’d made their own, because they’d changed the flight, they’d made their own independent means of getting from the airport to PRAIA DA LUZ.  Erm, so, I mean, that’s, erm, she’s probably wrong there.  Yeah, erm, yeah, ‘I think the apartment keys weren’t’, but I think it’s the other way round really, I think, I think we were just given our, we were allocated numbers and I don’t think the packs had the keys in, but I can’t be sure, so it’s, it’s the same sort of thing, I’m not sure, but, erm, it’s the other way round”.
1578    “’We had been allocated room numbers and the packs may have included the apartment keys but I cannot be sure’?”
Reply    “I think they didn’t, they may have, yeah, I suppose, it’s just, I don’t think we did get the keys, but, erm, or the other way round.  I, I don’t suppose that’s terribly important.  Erm, I’m not, I can’t quite say, but certainly, in terms of that text message from a friend from Germany, I’ve only got a fairly dim recollection of it, it wouldn’t have been ringing me in relation to work, I mean, she was in Leicester as a student in our University Department about, nearly eight years ago, so there wouldn’t be any relation to work now, so it would have just been, maybe just delete in relation to work, because I think she’d either texted me or called me at some point.  Erm, I just want to clarify the, the third from bottom paragraph, on my copy that says ‘I recall that they spoke about where to eat’, erm, it’s just, we were actually at the Tapas here, it says ‘I recall this was to be – at the Millennium Restaurant’.  I don’t, I think that could be just deleted, I mean, we had, we had to eat at the Millennium Restaurant that night because the Tapas was not open on the, the day of arrivals I think, but that implies that we were at the Millennium Restaurant at the time a little bit, so I would perhaps just delete ‘at the Millennium Restaurant’.  They told, they went, they went through the eating arrangements and they introduced themselves and there were people recruiting for activities, but we were actually at the Tapas at the time”.
1578    “So take out ‘at the Millennium’?”
Reply    “I think just delete ‘at the Millennium Restaurant’, it just implies that we were in a different position there.  Erm, there’s an error in the next paragraph, erm, ‘We all went to the Millennium Restaurant that evening, it was a ten minute walk, this was around half six to seven’, probably, I don’t know whether we discussed the times, it was probably, maybe six to six thirty for a start.  And it says ‘Everyone expect Matt was there because he was feeling unwell’, that’s wrong, Matt actually did come with us but he started to feel quite unwell when we got there and just sort of sat looking fairly green and unhappy during the meal, so he did come with us”.
1578    “So we amend the time?”
Reply    “I think it was probably a bit earlier than that”.
1578    “Eighteen hundred”.
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “To eighteen thirty”.
Reply    “I don’t think it was, erm, particularly late”.
1578    “And Matt was present?”
Reply    “Yeah, but was just, erm”.
1578    “But feeling unwell?”
Reply    “Yes, and then it just rather jumps, the next paragraph, erm, ‘The children were all in bed’ and that the children came, the children were with us on this occasion, yeah, they came up to the Millennium, it was, every single person went up, because we were all in there.  I think, maybe the clarity is, after we returned from the Millennium Restaurant I think everyone just put their respective children to bed and called it”.
1578    “This implies that the children were not with you at the Millennium?”
Reply    “Yes”.
1578    “Which in fact they were?”
Reply    “No, every, we all went up and then we came back, erm, well I think, when, if we had the video, what, what went on and we talked about there, is that we return, after we returned from the Millennium Restaurant we didn’t really do much else, I think we just got our respective children to bed and then, and then probably went too, or not that much longer afterwards.  Erm, the rest of that page is fine.  Erm, a little bit sort of out of, out of, erm, tut, synch really about Jez, I mean, it’s talking, it’s going back to the coach and not saying much on the plane.  I think, I certainly don’t think I recall, I, I, we did see Jez around the MARK WARNER complex, we were on, erm, hello terms, I don’t know how, you know, we were on kind of greeting terms, we had the, the odd, the odd conversation here and there during the week, he played I think a lot more tennis, so he knew, he had more, a lot more time with Gerry than with me, erm, and it says ‘I hadn’t met him prior to being on’, oh yes I have, ‘We didn’t speak much’”.
1578    “’I hadn’t met him prior to being on the plane’?”
Reply    “Yeah, I did meet him on the plane, yeah”.
1578    “That is correct, isn’t it?”
Reply    “Yeah, it’s just jumping around a bit, isn’t it really”.
1578    “’I can’t recall him being on the coach from the Airport but I think that he must have been on there as he was staying on the same resort’?”
Reply    “Yeah, I think it’s just to say that”.
1578    “So if we add there that you saw him”.
Reply    “It’s just like all three sentences are all kind of ploughing into one there.  ‘I recall seeing Jez around the MARK WARNER complex and was on’, erm, I don’t know, ‘polite terms with him’, we’d sort of say hello and not, we’ve had a couple of conversations probably, but not much more than that.  Erm, and then, erm, so, yeah, we didn’t speak much, ‘I hadn’t met him prior to being on the plane’, full stop.  ‘I can’t recall him being on the coach’, but, you know, he almost certainly was because he was staying on the same resort, that’s fine.  And I don’t, ‘I don’t know whereabouts he was staying but I think it was fairly near to where we were’”.
1578    “Fairly near to where you were?”
Reply    “Yeah, I think it was in, either the apartment blocks near us or there was some just over the other side of the road, as we discussed on Tuesday, MARK WARNER didn’t own every, every apartment in every block, they had a, sort of a splattering of apartments across the Ocean Club.  Erm, it says ‘Sunday the twenty-ninth of April’, I think it’s worth just saying, on that it currently runs, I think it’s actually running straight into the Monday thereafter, erm, we, I think I booked into Water Sports on the Saturday at this meeting at the Tapas, I think that’s where you made your bookings, it possibly may have been on the Sunday, I’m not entirely sure there, but, erm”.
1578    “So the booking for Water Sports?”
Reply    “May have been on the Saturday at the Tapas, it could have possibly been on, at a separate meeting on the Sunday, I’m not entirely sure whether there was one, one introductory meeting where everything happened including some of your bookings for what you wanted to do or whether there was a separate one on the Sunday.  But, erm, but just the way, the way this reads it implies that I had wind surfing lessons that day, but actually, erm, there was no water, I don’t think there was anything in terms, in terms of lessons down at the waterfront until the Monday”.
1578    “’I can’t recall exactly what I did on that day’ it should read, shouldn’t it?”
Reply    “On that day, yeah.  Erm, but ‘I’d agreed to have wind surfing lessons and do a bit of sailing’ shall we say ‘Monday through Thursday’, we add ‘Monday through Thursday’, because we certainly didn’t do that, I think the Sunday was sort of a, a relative day off for, erm, for the staff, well certainly with the, you know, for the staff at the beach I think.  I think the rest of it’s fine.  I don’t, I really can’t recall an awful lot about the Sunday, I think we probably just had a bit of a look round, a trip to the beach.  I’ve got a vague idea I, that you may have been able to still hire the kayaks, so I think I might have had a go on one of them, but I suppose that’s not terribly, terribly relevant.  Erm, it says on the next paragraph ‘I’m aware that Rachael asked to eat there each night for the remainder of our stay’, erm, that’s correct, but I think it’s worth pointing out that that booking was probably made on the Monday.  So we made one-off booking to eat at the Tapas on the Sunday, as I say, I think that was Rachael.  Erm, but I might be confusing it with the, the next day, where there were only a certain number of us around and I think Rachael made, asked, was asking if there was a block booking and I can certainly remember being stood, erm, around, there was a number of the group, erm, with her at the time, but I think it was Rachael that asked”.
1578    “So Rachael asked for the block booking on the Monday?”
Reply    “After we’d eaten there once.  We must, we, you know, we didn’t know what it was like and I think we ate there and, erm, enjoyed it and thought it was, it was going to be convenient, erm, for, for, for us and for the children and so the block booking would have been the next morning.  So, yeah, Matt was unwell on the Sunday.  Yeah, there was only eight of us there.  Erm, it doesn’t quite make sense here.  It says ‘In relation to the child care issues it was a collective decision made as a group’, fine.  ‘Dave and Fiona used their two-way child monitor’, erm, ‘alone to monitor their children’ because they”.
1578    “’Dave and Fiona used their two-way child monitor to monitor their children’?”
Reply    “Yeah, and that, that’s what they used because they had this, they could, they could listen in and talk to, in their room as well, so they didn’t, erm.  And then it says, and it doesn’t make sense, it just says ‘Kate and Gerry to check their children’, there’s a verb missing there”.
1578    “Really it should be a full-stop after ‘their children’, shouldn’t it?”
Reply    “A full-stop, yeah.  Yeah, full-stop, yeah.  And then ‘Kate and Gerry’, erm, I’d say, ‘physically’, ‘physically went’, yeah, ‘physically checked’”.
1578    “’Kate and Gerry had to physically check their children’?”
Reply    “A physically check, ‘physically check their children’, erm, ‘as did Matt and Rachael to check Grace and Jane and myself to check Evie and Ella’.  Erm, I’m not sure that we were ever, I don’t think we were led to believe that there was a Baby Listening Service, I think, erm”.
1578    “Right, just bear with me a minute”.
Reply    “Sorry”.
1578    “’We were led to believe that there was a Baby Listening Service but this wasn’t the case’?”
Reply    “I don’t think we were led to believe, I think we, we, erm, we knew that there wasn’t a Baby Listening Service, erm, I don’t think we were led to believe that there was.  Erm, there were certain things in the brochure about the resort that were incorrect and that formed part of Dave’s emails, erm, but they were largely about other things, like hire and, erm”.
1578    “’The brochure was incorrect’?”
Reply    “In, in, in other ways, but I don’t think it was about, it wasn’t about”.
1578    “Was incorrect in relation to the Baby Listening Service?”
Reply    “No, I don’t think, I don’t, I don’t remember it was, I think, erm”.
1578    “’The brochure was incorrect in other aspects’?”
Reply    “Yeah, fairly trivial, just about, erm, I think”.
1578    “’And these formed part of’?”
Reply    “Of Dave’s correspondence with MARK WARNER.  I think it was, erm, there was, erm, there were a few things that I, because it was a new resort I think things had, were, were in a state of flux for MARK WARNER on what, on what was said in the brochure and what was actually there and things were changing and some things that we were promised didn’t happen, some things that, that were.  A lot in the brochure were actually there and, erm, I don’t, it wasn’t that there wasn’t a Baby Listening Service, I don’t think, but, erm, you know, I think, erm.  I think for the next paragraph, erm, ‘Kate and Gerry would check’, it says ‘Initially we would only check our own room’, I think actually it was, it was more, it was more fluid than that, I think early on, for instance”.
1578    “Sorry, whereabouts are we?”
Reply    “’I’m aware that initially we would only check on our own rooms, on occasions we may have listened at other apartments and doors and windows’, I think actually, generally speaking, what we would do is, we would often listen at other, often listened at the windows of the other apartments and routinely go into our own, erm.  But it wasn’t a question of initially we’d only check our own rooms, I think actually earlier on, and certainly from my point of view, I actually went into Kate and Gerry’s room, erm, on the Sunday and Matt’s room on the Sunday, we, at the start we were going to each and every room, but I think then, because there was a bit of, it was actually more that we would listen at the windows and go into our own room, because there was, you know, everyone was going up and down in a cycle, in the circuit, so”.
1578    “So ‘We may have listened at other’?”
Reply    “Listened and, and early on actually checked, yeah, early on we”.
1578    “’Listened at other apartment doors or windows’?”
Reply    “I think that happened, that happened quite a lot, we would often do that”.
1578    “So you are happy with ‘the doors or the windows’?”
Reply    “Yeah, ‘listened at the doors and windows’”.
1578    “’And also’?”
Reply    “’And checked on our own rooms and’, you know, ‘on some visits other people’s apartments’.  But I don’t think it was like, I don’t, it’s the word ‘initial’ ‘Initially we’d only check on our rooms’, I don’t think that was necessarily true, I think we would be listening at the window just to make sure no-one was awake”.
1578    “So we could take out that ‘initial’ then?”
Reply    “You can just say, yeah”.
1578    “’I’m aware we’?”
Reply    “Well, ‘I’m aware that we checked our own rooms and also listened at other apartment doors and windows’ and then ‘maybe on occasion, on some occasions we actually entered the other rooms as well’.  Erm, the next paragraph, I don’t think I was quite so specific about, erm, ‘Other people’s apartments were on deadlock’, but I think when I, well, so that’s wrong.  ‘On Sunday I recall I checked Kate and Gerry’s apartment as well as Rachael and Matt’s’, that’s true.  Erm, I’m not sure about taking their keys, I think I, I think I definitely took Matt and Rachael’s keys, but I entered Gerry’s flat through the patio door”.
1578    “Okay.  So, ‘I had taken their keys and recall the door was deadlocked, I needed to turn the key two times, the shutters were down’?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah, I don’t think, erm, I don’t think, erm”.
1578    “’I recall that Gerry and Kate’s I had to get (inaudible)’”.
Reply    “That, that, that is me talking about our arrangements in our flat, so it’s kind of all fused into one there.  So maybe just to clarify that, it would be easier to say ‘In our flat we closed the patio door, shut and locked’, erm, ‘shut the blinds, the shutters down and locked the internal window, double locked the front door after we went out and the patio door was also locked, was closed and locked’.  So that was, that was our arrangements inside our flat.  And then on Sunday ‘I recall I checked Kate and Gerry’s apartment as well as Rachael and Matt’s and my recollection is that I needed Matt’s key to check on their room and I had it, but I didn’t need Kate and Gerry’s key because they went through the patio door’, erm, we went through the patio door to cross in and look into the children’s bedroom.  So, at the time, I have to say, I didn’t really think that, you know, about the differences in how, in how we were, the security in the, in the rooms was, but, erm, I definitely did not go in through Gerry’s and Kate’s main, you know, double locked door or anything, I’m sure I went through the patio, so I think they were doing things differently from Matt and Rachael, at least from the ground floor perspective, right from the word go”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “Erm, but, yes, the business about ‘The door was deadlocked and I recall I needed to turn it two times’, actually that is not recalling anything, that’s just describing how, erm, how we, erm, left, left five ‘D’ when we went to, went to dinner, closed the patio door, deadlocked the main door, put the shutters down and”.
1578    “Sorry, whereabouts are you now?”
Reply    “I’m just clarifying what I’ve already said there.  As I say, that this is sort of two different, erm, threads of the same conversation here.  One conversation is, what did, you know, what, what did we do in our flat, and that is the shutters were down on all the windows, the internal windows behind the shutters were shut and locked, erm, and the patio door was, was locked from the inside and, erm, and then we went out through the main door into the car park and double locked the door.  We were conscious that, that, erm, if you, you only do one lock on the main door then it can be opened from the inside but if you double lock it then, then, then you need the key to get in or out”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “And then the second point is, what did I do on Sunday, and on Sunday, erm, on one of the visits at least, erm, I went back to five ‘D’ and checked on our children, but I also went to five, erm, ‘D’ on Matt’s and I, I’m pretty sure that I needed Matt’s key to do that, so I think they were doing the same as us.  But when, for Kate and Gerry, I just went in through the patio steps and, and just across to the room.  It says ‘I recall that their front door was accessed from the car park but immediate access to their apartment was gained from the pool side’, and I think that’s, I mean, that was correct on, on, on that particular night and that particular visit, it’s whether that was what they were doing every night, I’m not sure, but I think, erm, they generally were going in through, through the, erm, through the patio door”.
1578    “So if we put ‘generally’ in between ‘but’ and ‘immediate’, ‘But generally immediate access to the apartment w as gained from the pool side’?”
Reply    “The pool side, yes, to their apartment, yeah.  The rest of that page, erm, as far as, erm, ‘Back to the apartment but I can’t be sure’, is fine.  So on Monday the thirtieth of April now, erm, I think that can, (inaudible) Jane’s, not very important, but, I think it’s not ‘Wind surfing or sailing’, I think it was wind surfing, so ‘or sailing’ can be deleted”.
1578    “’I recall I may have done some wind surfing or sailing’?”
Reply    “Yeah, just delete ‘or sailing’ on Monday, it was wind surfing.  Erm, ‘I dropped Ella off at the crèche’, she was always quite happy to go, it wasn’t that she didn’t like going, actually it was Evie that, Evie was a little bit more, erm, reticent about going, erm, so there’s two, there’s two things here.  What I would say here is ‘I dropped Ella off at the crèche’, erm, ‘and Evie was also left at the crèche although wasn’t quite so keen on it as Ella initially’.  So it was Evie that wasn’t as keen on it”.
1578    “’Evie also dropped off’?”
Reply    “’Also dropped off’, erm, they were obviously at separate places.  Erm, and the point about, at the end of the holiday, was that our intention was not put Ella or Evie into the crèche on every session because obviously I sort of don’t see them as much as Jane does and I, I mean, there were a couple of sessions we didn’t, we didn’t put them in, so I just, erm, had some time with them over, over the week.  But, as time went on, although this clearly also, erm, goes into the couple of weeks after the abduction, when we were still there as well, that Ella, Ella loved it so much, you know, she was saying, you know, ‘I just want to go’, you know, ‘I want to go to club’.  Erm, so, you know, although we weren’t intending to put Ella in all the time, in the end she went most, well she did go most morning and afternoon sessions because she was so keen on it and had such a great time there”.
1578    “So ‘Ella went to’?”
Reply    “’Ella went to Kids Club’, erm”.
1578    “’Kids Club’?”
Reply    “Erm, the plan was for her not necessarily to go to all sessions”.
1578    “And the Kids Club was the reception, wasn’t it?”
Reply    “That was down at the, yeah, the Ocean Club.  Erm, Evie was in the, the crèche, but immediately behind the Tapas.  But the plan, our plan at least, Jane and mine, was that we would put them into a certain number of sessions just allow us some free time to, to, to do a few other things, but that I would probably spend some time with them not in clubs.  But Ella, Ella absolutely loved it and after a couple of sessions Evie, Evie was pretty happy there too”.
1578    “So ‘I dropped Ella off at the Kids Club’?”
Reply    “Yeah, that’s probably more, not crèche”.
1578    “’And Evie at reception’?”
Reply    “’Evie at the crèche’”.
1578    “Sorry, ‘at the crèche’”.
Reply    “Evie went to the crèche, erm”.
1578    “Initially?”
Reply    “Initially Evie, well, I mean, and by initially, like a lot of nursery, when you leave people at nursery, I mean, for the first five minutes, you know, Evie wasn’t very happy, but, no, she enjoyed it once she was there, she was usually happy to see us.  Ella had been at pre, you know, had been going to pre-school and had gone to nursery actually for a lot longer than Evie had over the years, so she just sort of got on with it, just went in and got on with it”.
1578    “So the statement there that ‘Initially she didn’t like going but by the end of the holiday she was asking to go’?”
Reply    “That’s, that’s”.
1578    “That is correct in respect of Evie?”
Reply    “No, no.  No, no, no, I mean, Evie was only one so she wouldn’t be asking to go anyway”.
1578    “Sorry”.
Reply    “Erm, sorry, the clarification here is, that we weren’t going to book them in for every session, erm, initially we dropped of Ella, she just got on with it, absolutely happy from the word go.  Erm, Evie when we dropped off, would have a bit, a few tears like a lot of young kids do when you leave them at nursery, but there were no reports of her not having a good time and she was happy, you know, once, once she had been dropped off.  The comment about wanting to go more was actually as the week wore on, although I’m talking really now, you know, we were there for an extra two weeks and we used the facilities of MARK WARNER, so Ella was enjoying the Kids Club so much that she usually requested to go rather than, rather than us kind of saying, you know, ‘Do you want to go’.  So Ella ended up, you know, going to probably more sessions because she just got so much out of it and came back, you know, so animated, you know.  And they were very good with them, they took them out, they changed, every half hour they’d do something different, they’d do something inside or they’d go to the beach or they’d go sailing or they’d go and play tennis, you know, a really, really exciting day for Ella and she would come back absolutely knackered.  Erm, so I think that, that’s just for clarification.  Yeah, erm, I think, where it says ‘We generally ate with Rachael and Matt’, erm, ‘and this was in our apartment or theirs’, I think it could be worth saying there ‘We also ate in’, erm, ‘Fiona and Dave’s flat’ full-stop.  ‘And then after Madeleine disappeared we all began eating in Dave and Fiona’s’, well ‘We all began eating lunch at Dave and Fiona’s apartment very, very, very regularly’, that became the focus for us all.  So just the addition of, erm, ‘and sometimes at Fiona and’”.
1578    “’We didn’t eat out at lunchtime we generally ate with Rachael and Matt’?”
Reply    “’And this was in our apartment or theirs or also Fiona and Dave’s’, that’s probably the easiest way of just adding it without changing the whole thing.  So there was a, there was a sort of a circuit of lunches where all the kids would get together and after Madeleine disappeared we generally ate lunch at Dave and Fiona’s apartment”.
1578    “So we include ‘or theirs/Dave and Fiona’?”
Reply    “Dave and Fi as well, yeah.  And then the next bit is fair enough, which is fair enough there that ‘After Madeleine disappeared we began eating’ maybe just ‘lunch at Dave and Fiona’s apartment regularly’.  Erm, at the end, the next paragraph is fair, you know, it’s fair enough I think, I think that’s fine.  An addition at the end maybe just saying, you know, regarding the Monday and Tuesday, I think it was Monday night because, erm, I have this recollection that on Tuesday it was the first night we’d all been together, the nine of us, actually, you know, present”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “However Jane actually thinks that it was, erm, Tuesday, it was probably Tuesday night, so we’re, we’re not entirely sure.  I don’t know if that’s going to be very relevant, but I thought it was Monday and Jane thinks it might have been Tuesday”.
1578    “You say ‘Either Monday or Tuesday’?”
Reply    “Yeah, so as long as, well”.
1578    “You could cross-out ‘either’ and put in ‘possibly’.  ‘Possibly Monday’ and cross-out ‘or Tuesday’?”
Reply    “Erm, I don’t know, maybe I’m just being fussy.  I mean, it was either Monday or Tuesday, me and Jane can’t quite agree on that one, we thought, erm.  Just leave it as it is”.
1578    “If we leave it as it is.  We do say ‘Either Monday or Tuesday’, don’t we?”
Reply    “Yeah.  I think rather than, erm, at one point I know, erm, Madeleine and Sean and Amelie did eat lunch in, in Dave and Fi’s apartment, so rather than ‘each day’ it might be worth just saying ‘most days’.  I think they, they generally, erm, had their lunch separate, I think.  So it says ‘Kate and Gerry had lunch in their apartment as they did each day’, but there was certainly an occasion on one of them, sort of a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, erm, that they, that they ate up in, you know, we were all, all the kids were together at one point, it was a bit of a squeeze with everyone in there”.
1578    “So do you want to?”
Reply    “Just change it to ‘most days’ and then at least it, because it certainly wasn’t sort of every day.  It says ‘I want out’, erm, erm, I think it should probably say ‘I went out’.  I think the conversation we were having there is actually I think me and Matt”.
1578    “It should be ‘went’, shouldn’t it?”
Reply    “It should be ‘Went out in the afternoon to the beach’.  And I think this is, what we were saying at this point is, erm, I think me and Matt actually went kayaking.  And I don’t know”.
1578    “’I went out in the afternoon near to the beach’?”
Reply    “Well ‘to the beach’, I think possibly me and Matt may have kayaked”.
1578    “So we will cross-out ‘near to the beach’ and ‘think’?”
Reply    “’Matt and I went kayaking’.  I think Dave came, yeah, maybe even Dave came as well.  There was, there was several on one occasion, the three, the three of us”.
1578    “’Kayaking, possibly with Dave’?”
Reply    “Possibly, but certainly with Matt and maybe, erm, ‘with Matt and possibly also Dave’.  There was one, there was one occasion when the three of us took the kayaks out.  And I’m not quite sure what the next bit is, ‘Saw your children with their Nannies at the Mini Club.  We met at the Tapas Bar’.  I think this is actually, this is, that’s, this is me describing what happened at the end of the afternoon, the afternoon Mini Club.  At the end of the morning session we generally had to pick them up from Ocean Club, at the end of the afternoon session the Nannies would bring them up on a little kind of plastic chain, all the kids would sort of hold onto a thing”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “And they would walk them through that garden I described on Tuesday and they’d come across the road and go to high tea about five o’clock.  So I think, you know, certainly we wouldn’t go to the beach and ‘Saw the children with their Nannies at the Mini Club’, I mean, we went to the beach had a kayak and the children came back to high tea at about half five, erm, brought back by the Nannies from Ocean Club”.
1578    “’The children came back about half five to high tea’?”
Reply    “Yeah, from, ‘from Ocean Club accompanied by the Nannies’ which is what they did every day.  Maybe, erm, this is just the description of, of what tended to happen.  As I say, we didn’t have, you didn’t have to do a pick up at”.
1578    “’The children came back about five thirty pm from Ocean Club’?”
Reply    “Yeah, five fifteen, five thirty, yeah”.
1578    “’To’?”
Reply    “’To the Tapas area’, there was a sort of raised covered area where they would sit all the kids down and they would bring them out their food, so they were fed separately”.
1578    “’For high tea’?”
Reply    “Yeah, I’d never heard of the word ‘high tea’ until I’d been to MARK WARNER.  Erm, okay, yeah, I think there’s, I mean, certainly days that were generally uneventful and nothing kind of sticks out in my mind about anything unusual that gave us any suggestion that we were in for, you know, for the events that we were in for”.
1578    “Umm”.
Reply    “Erm, it’s worth, it says, ‘I recall that there was a Trivia Quiz on either Tuesday or Wednesday evening, it was conducted by aerobics’, this is wrong.  Erm, this was a way, if you had other information, of working out which day I wasn’t there.  Erm, there was, the day that I didn’t, so either on the Monday or Tuesday, the day that I wasn’t there, erm, that, that I think it was that, you know, there was an aerobics instructor who, this is second-hand information, who was drumming up some support for, you know, some group called Pool Aerobics or something, from the people who were there.  Erm, and the only reason I mentioned that was, if you had that information in other people’s statements about what night the quiz took place on, that was the night I wasn’t there”.
1578    “Right.  ‘I recall there was a Trivia Quiz on either the Tuesday or Wednesday evening’”.
Reply    “So that might be better, jumping back up to where I have said ‘I know on one of the evenings, either the Monday or Tuesday, I stayed in the flat with Evie, she wasn’t well and Jane brought her over’, so if at the end of that statement, that paragraph, it then says ‘this occurred on the night where there was a Trivia Quiz, possibly conducted by the aerobics instructor’, I mean, that would, that would, erm.  And then when, when the statements are, you know, are cross-referenced, then I think it would be probably fairly apparent to know which night that was”.
1578    “Then we can delete those two lines?”
Reply    “And then the rest of it can go, yeah, that doesn’t, I mean, I might as well hop, hop back up to the, the other bit.  But I wasn’t there, I don’t recall the Trivia Quiz, that was the night I wasn’t there, it is only speaking to other people, erm, that I know that that was, that that was the night I missed.  On Wednesday, it might be worth saying that ‘Rachael was ill and stayed in the flat’”.
1578    “Right.  So ‘On Wednesday Rachael was ill and stayed in the flat’?”
Reply    “In five ‘B’.  It says ‘I checked the McCANN’s apartment’, erm, kind of implies I may have gone in.  I think that I made a check to the apartments at that point, which would have been in, certainly by this point, it was generally a listen outside with the others and a check on your own”.
1578    “’I checked the McCANN’s apartment and I believe that this was around twenty-three hundred’?”
Reply    “Yeah, I think this is a kind of fusion of all that we were discussing on the extra, the extra visits back from the bar and I said well within that hour I think me and Jane, yeah, me and Jane had gone back, you know, once each”.
1578    “And this was on the Wednesday?”
Reply    “This was just the Wednesday.  This is when we stayed, you know, after the meal we stayed in the bar area for a, you know, for a cocktail or something and then, erm, so we were out for a little longer than any of, any of the other nights.  And on the, but the way it’s written there it says that I checked the McCANN’s apartment, but I think by this part of the week, certainly on my, from my, my own, when I went back I generally went into our apartment and then we’d just have a listen at the shutters on the others”.
1578    “So if I say or if we say there ‘I checked the McCANN’s apartment by listening at the shutters’?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah, from outside, yeah.  And that would have been true for Matt’s as well.  Certainly I didn’t end up, you know, after that first Sunday night, I don’t really recall going into the other people’s apartments with any, at all really, I think it was largely a listen to make sure all was quiet and a check on your own.  And everyone was doing this, with a listen outside.  So there were fairly regular listens and then slightly less regular visits inside by people, you know, individual, erm, parents.  It says ‘All appeared to be well’ rather than ‘too well’.  ‘It all appeared too well’ sounds a bit ominous”.
1578    “Yes, possibly right”.
Reply    “’Went to the flat with Evie’.  No, I didn’t leave Evie in the flat.  It says ‘Went to the flat with Evie, while she was resting I went outside to watch Jane play tennis’.  I think I was sat and, I went to the flat with Evie, erm, she, I think she did have a snooze that morning, erm, and I read a book and played with her and then, at some stage, I think when Jane had finished playing tennis, I then went out with Evie to play tennis”.
1578    “Right.  So we just need to add in there then?”
Reply    “Well if it just said that, you know, well Evie came with me to watch the tennis, Evie wasn’t in the flat on her own at that point during the day.  ‘Went to the flat with Evie, read a book, later me and Evie went outside to watch Jane play tennis’ full-stop.  Maybe, ‘I believe I saw Madeleine at lunchtime’, I’m sure that, erm.  And it says ‘I can’t recall if I collected Ella or whether she was brought up by the Nannies, it’s all a bit hazy now’, I think I can probably say the Nannies did not bring the children back at the end of the morning session because there was no tea, they weren’t bringing them back sort of thing.  So I think I can probably, I can probably clarify there that, erm, ‘Either Jane or I collected Ella from the’, erm, ‘from the’, erm, ‘Ocean Club, Mini Club’”.
1578    “’Either Jane or I’?”
Reply    “Yeah, and it’s slightly out of order here now.  The next paragraph, erm, yeah, the wording, it’s a bit, it’s a bit sort of, I mean, there’s, there’s such a kind of, you know, uncomfortable coincidences next, in this next, but this is out of order, this is before we have gone and collected Evie.  So after I’ve gone out to play tennis, erm, the next couple of paragraphs occur and then ‘We probably saw Madeleine at lunchtime and one of us probably collected Ella’, so it’s slightly out of, it’s slightly out of synch this”.
1578    “So”.
Reply    “So these two paragraphs probably are going to go in at the point where I went outside to play tennis”.
1578    “Sorry, which two paragraphs?”
Reply    “Well the bit about the, erm”.
1578    “So those two paragraphs”.
Reply    “The chap on holiday, you know, feeling, erm, you know, awkward, taking a photograph of his daughter”.
1578    “Yes, they want to be slipped in?”
Reply    “They need to go at the end of ‘I went outside to watch Jane play tennis’ full-stop, because everything else is at lunchtime, this was actually before lunchtime.  I think the wording here is a bit, is a bit, erm”.
1578    “In between ‘play tennis’ and ‘I believe I saw Madeleine at lunchtime’?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah, so that’s coming, ‘I saw Madeleine at lunchtime’ and ‘Me or Jane collected Ella from the Ocean Club’ will be a kind of, a later paragraph.  No, this is wrong.  Erm”.
1578    “Just bear with me a moment please”.
Reply    “I mean, the essence of it is right, but, but the”.
1578    “So we now go to?”
Reply    “’I recall’, I mean, it’s a bit, it doesn’t need the ‘I recall’.  ‘After’, it’s actually ‘After Jane’”.
1578    “Are these the two paragraphs that we want to?”
Reply    “That we’ll be moving to, at the end of that (inaudible)?”
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “It’s actually going to be ‘After Jane’s tennis lesson’.  Erm, you can actually delete ‘Madeleine was playing tennis’ at all, because, erm, it wasn’t Madeleine, Madeleine and Ella had done this the day before, erm”.
1578    “Okay.  So I shall take out ‘I recall that Jane was having a tennis lesson’?”
Reply    “It’s just ‘After Jane’s tennis lesson’”.  And then you can actually delete ‘Madeleine was playing tennis, they were having a lesson’, because that, well it wasn’t Madeleine that day at all.  Erm, it says ‘After Jane’s tennis lesson’, I’ll try and preserve it as much as possible, ‘I recall that one of the guests’, erm, ‘a man from Southampton came up’ full-stop.  ‘His daughter’, it was his three year old daughter, ‘his young daughter was having a’, this, it may be word perfect, ‘was having a’, erm”.
1578    “We have got ‘His daughter was playing tennis’?”
Reply    “Well, yeah, his, his daughter was having a tennis lesson, you know, a kid’s tennis lesson, I mean, she was only, she was probably the same age as Ella and Evie, they were in the same, they were all at the same clubs but they had, there were, there were a certain number of children so they had them in two groups, so they didn’t always do the same thing, you know, Beavers and the Lobsters or something.  Erm, and, yeah, she was having a, a sort of, well kind of a kiddies tennis lesson”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “And the question about Madeleine then, this is exactly the same as Madeleine and Ella had done the day before.  Erm, and that’s where that very famous picture of Madeleine with the tennis balls was taken, so.  But it wasn’t Madeline on this day, Madeleine and Ella were in the same group and I think they’d been done on, you know, the Tuesday or the Wednesday, they had come up, so they all, there were two kind of mini kid groups, mini club kid groups and they did, you know, they were on like a rota and they did things at different times and on different days.  So Madeleine was not there at that point at all.  And I think that’s important, particularly, because of what the man said, if Madeleine was potentially being photographed by anyone, it was absolutely clear that Madeleine and Ella were not there that day.  It says ‘I recall that a guy from Southampton came up, his daughter was playing tennis, he wanted to take a picture’, erm, ‘but casual’, maybe ‘casually expressed to us how uncomfortable he felt in doing so’”.
1578    “’But casually expressed’?”
Reply    “Yeah, you know, he wasn’t, he just.  And it might be worth saying that, you know, he said that the, you know, something like, you know, ‘These days you feel like a pervert’ or maybe just extending that, you know, ‘You feel like a dirty old man taking a picture of your own daughter’ maybe just to make it a bit more explicit, because that’s what he said, you know, he didn’t just come up and say ‘Oh I feel like a dirty old man’, you know, sort of, you know, ‘In this’, you know, ‘The way things are these days’, erm, you know, ‘you feel like a criminal’ or ‘a dirty old man taking a photo of your own kid’”.
1578    “’The way things are these days you feel like a’?”
Reply    “Yeah, you know, it, it was, it was a, it wasn’t just a ‘Oh I feel a bit dirty taking this’”.
1578    “Did he use the word ‘pervert’?”
Reply    “Huh, we had a whole conversation about this and whether those were his first words or whether this was what, you know, because there was Kate, there was myself, Jane, Rachael, him, there was a small group, you know, around, and I think he felt a little self-conscious because he was walking past another group of parents taking a photograph of several kids at the net of the tennis”.
1578    “Yeah”.
Reply    “I don’t know if he used the word ‘perv’, but the conversation went round on this and, you know, that, that society, you know, makes, can make normal parents feel uncomfortable doing what ten, twenty, thirty years ago would have been considered an entirely innocent thing, like taking a photograph.  Erm, I think it would be ‘a dirty old man’, ‘feel a bit of a perv’, phew, I don’t know what his first words were.  But then we actually had a conversation and I think, you know, we, probably as a group, kind of said, you know, said ‘It’s ridiculous isn’t it, you know, you take a picture of your own kid and you’re made to feel like you’re a pervert’ or something like that.  Erm, and I don’t like the next paragraph the way it is, I think its, erm”.
1578    “Just a moment.  And present at that conversation were?”
Reply    “Well certainly myself, Jane, Kate and Rachael, erm, I don’t know if there was any, erm, I think it was kind of generally a sort of women’s tennis lesson that had gone on, there may have been a partner of one of the other, of the other guests, there were a couple of people who were, who Kate and Rachael and Jane had played with, I, I forget the names. I’ve got this vague recollection there was a lady who, probably in her mid-forties, blonde hair, who may have been there as well, I, I never really spoke to her really.  But there may have been one person like in the group as well who had been playing tennis.  And this chap who, who, erm, whose name is in my original statement, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what it was, erm, but he, as I say, he lives in Southampton, he was there with his wife and a young kid and, erm, and had lived in Exeter about fifteen years before, which was one of the conversations we had, erm, at that point.  Erm, but, yeah, those are, those, certainly Rachael, Kate and myself, Jane and this man”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “And the next paragraph just doesn’t, I know it’s been cobbled together, it doesn’t read, erm, actually I think, erm”.
1578    “’I found this most uncomfortable’?”
Reply    “Well, no, I think, not”.
1578    “Or are we going down to Ella?”
Reply    “No, no, no, ‘I found this most’, I mean, huh, it’s my recollection that at the time it seemed, erm, like, huh, a slightly lamenting conversation about the state of modern day, you know, Britain, you know, so maybe, erm.  I think it might be worth just to clarify, we then, you know, something like ‘We then had a conversation about the seemingly’, erm, ‘ludicrous nature of’, erm”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “’Of, you know, ‘that you couldn’t take photographs of your own children’”.
1578    “’We then had a conversation’?”
Reply    “Yeah, that ‘the ludicrous pressure on parents that they can’t take photographs of their own children’, because I think that was the essence of it.  And certainly the other, the other aspect of the conversation that was made, which kind of, you know, is, huh, is doubly haunting, was that, you know, we said that, you know, ‘You’re far’, you know, ‘You’re far more likely to get clobbered by your uncle or your neighbour than some’, you know, ‘random stranger’.  Erm, which in light of the way that the Police investigation has gone, erm, it feels like, you know, erm, a real kick in the nuts”.
1578    “’Far more like to get clobbered by’?”
Reply    “You know, you’re far more likely to have, you know, you know, to have a problem with somebody, from somebody you know, and we actually said, and that was actually sort of said, you know, we all worry about, you know, a small number of fairly kind of sick perverts”.
1578    “Rather than a stranger?”
Reply    “Rather than a stranger, yeah, but, huh, erm, which of course, you know, of course statistically is true, erm.  And the bit here that says ‘I found this most uncomfortable’, is that, you know, since, since this happened, you know, ten or eleven hours before, before Madeleine was abducted, it just seemed a really, it’s really, you know, a very, very uncomfortable coincidence, you know, ever since I found this, you know, this whole pile of things that are nast, you know, are really kind of unpleasant, but the fact that we actually had this conversation, you know, within twelve hours of her going missing was, was, erm, well, haunting, you know, that men were, erm.  You know, it’s just, erm, I mean, it is just a coincidence, it’s not as if, within the space of a year in Britain, you know, you don’t hear of, you know, a school banning cameras and, you know, it’s quite, it’s not an uncommon conversation I think for, you know, for parents with young children these days to think, you know, you know, has it gone too far, you know, is there too much, is there too much kind of worry and protection and are we, you know, damaging children’s upbringing, by by not allowing them to, you know, to, to run free a little.  Erm, and I think, yeah, and the last statement, I definitely want that there.  I mean, as far as I was concerned, this was, this was an entirely reasonable comment from this man, he’d just walked past a few parents, some of whom he probably didn’t know, erm, and he was taking photographs of his daughter, who was on this tennis court, but there were adjacent children in, in, you know, in shot.  Erm, and I can, you know, particularly as a, as a man, can particularly understand how he might have felt going up there because clearly, erm, you know, this is, this is something that, you know, you need to be aware of.  And my dad, you know, we’ve had a conversation about this since, you know, when I was little and growing up, in the street he would freely talk, he would freely talk with my friends and people going by and he says, you know, just, you know, these days you just, you just ignore people, you ignore children because you wouldn’t want anyone to sort of think that you were, you know, you were kind of, erm, trying to entertain them with an ulterior motive.  So this did not feel bad and I would hate to think that me saying this that anyone would think that I was trying to implicate this man, I do not think that there was anything untoward in it”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “Yeah, ‘I went back to the Kids Club’, erm, ‘I think Jane was looking after Evie’, well ‘Jane was looking after Evie’, there wasn’t a question of”.
1578    “So ‘I think that’ wants coming out?”
Reply    “Yeah, ‘Jane was looking after Evie’, we didn’t, we didn’t put her into, into the club that afternoon.  Yeah, ‘When I was with Matt he fell in the water and I saved him’.  The saviour.  Erm, yeah.  Sorry, yeah, the rest of that page is fine.  It sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet there, but I’m a bad sailor, it, it was quite a, it was quite feat.  Erm, so at the end of page”.
1578    “Where are we now up to?”
Reply    “’When I was out sailing with Matt he fell in the water, I had saved him’, erm, ‘which made the day quite memorable’, yeah, full-stop.  Oh that, and it being ‘the best day weather wise’, yeah, it was a really nice day”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “Okay?”
1578    “Yeah”.
Reply    “Erm, ‘Jane was at the beach with the children (inaudible) she was in full running kit’.  Erm, you did ask me about what kit she had on at the time, erm, I mean, I said I think it was probably either a grey vest top, it was probably slightly less than a tee-shirt, erm, and sort of blue sort of sports, you know, female running shorts, or the colours were the other way round, but, that would be a guesstimate.  You also asked if we, erm, oh well you’ve got it later on, it says ‘When Kate ran past on her run she didn’t speak to us but she did acknowledge us as a group’.  I think, yeah, I mean, that perhaps goes back, it just needs, it’s a bit out of order, but it’s there nonetheless.  Erm, no”.
1578    “Do you want me to put that sentence in ‘in full running kit’?”
Reply    “It just, I suppose, ‘She was dressed in her full running kit’ and the description of it and ‘When Kate ran past’, then at least it’s all the facts together.  The next.  Sorry, you haven’t finished yet.  The next, the next statement is wrong.  Erm, it says ‘The Nannies had brought the children up for readiness for tea, I can’t say if I saw Madeleine when Ella came back’, that’s wrong.  What happened was, erm, ordinarily we would have met all the children from the Kids Club, the Mini Club at high tea, they would have been brought up and sat down by the Nannies and we’d have just joined the group, we’d have been there when they got there.  On this occasion we were on the beach and as it got towards five o’clock I, I pelted up the hill to collect Ella before they were taken up to the main complex.  Does that make sense?  And so, erm, the reason that I think this is in here is, you were asking me I think if I’d saw Madeleine there, now because I got there before the children had left, by rights Madeleine should have been there as well, unless Kate and Gerry had taken her out earlier for some reason.  Erm, with eleven months passage, I can’t, if I’m honest with you, I can’t picture whether Madeleine was there.  But, generally speaking, by this point in the afternoon people were not, we weren’t collecting, we weren’t doing any collecting in that afternoon, so I think Madeleine will have been there.  Erm, but if I’m honest, I can’t, you know, hand on heart, say, when I picked Ella up and took her down to the beach before the Nannies took her up to, erm, for high tea, that I saw Madeleine there.  But I got in early enough to get Ella out before the end of, well, you know, arrived just before they actually left to go up, so by rights she should have been there”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “And I think, I, I can’t remember what I said in my original statement on that one, to be fair.  Erm, but, erm, my gut feeling is that she was there when I picked Ella up.  But, as I say, you know, hand on heart, that’s not, that’s not a”.
1578    “Yeah, you do say you can’t say if you saw Madeleine”.
Reply    “No, I think now it’s, I can’t honestly say that Madeleine was there when I picked Ella up at five, but there was no particular reason why we were doing any of these pick ups, the only reason I ran up there was because we were on, we were on the beach and we didn’t want Ella to be taken all the way up to high tea.  And I think by this point we’d already decided we were going to stay on the beach and go and have some food down there”.
1578    “’When Ella came back’, those four words?”
Reply    “Yeah, that’s wrong, I mean, that’s not quite right, I can’t.  Erm, well you need to delete ‘The Nannies had brought the children up in readiness for tea’, because that, that’s not true, I mean, I got Ella before they’d even taken her up, so that can go, it needs to go out entirely.  And the comment about that was that ‘The Nannies would have taken them up to tea at the Tapas had I not’, well ‘would have taken Ella had I not got in there and signed her out and brought her down to the beach’.  But I think it’s fair enough to say that, erm, ‘I’m not entirely convinced now whether Madeleine was there or not, but I’ve no reason to suppose that she wasn’t’.  And it’s not ‘when Ella came back’, so perhaps ‘I’m not entirely sure whether Madeleine was there now when I picked Ella up, when I collected Ella’”.
1578    “And this was from the Kiddies Club?”
Reply    “Erm, yes, I picked them up from the, from the club in the, just the sort of first floor of the Ocean Club complex, sort of main reception”.
1578    “And you then took her back down to the beach?”
Reply    “We went back down to the beach.  I suppose be a bit more specific about what happened on the beach.  Erm, yeah, ‘We didn’t stick to the usual routine that day’, erm, ‘ate their tea at the bar on the beach called the Paradiso.  Everyone was there except Kate, Gerry and the kids’.  It might be worth just saying ‘I believe Dianne was there as well’, because that’s the only person, I’m not entirely sure, we did, we did, erm, occasionally pop there during the day on a number of occasions, rarely in the week or after the abduction, but I’m pretty sure Dianne was there.  I think, I say ‘I think Dave went to his apartment and Kate and Gerry’s’”.
1578    “’I think Dave went to his apartment’?”
Reply    “’His apartment and Kate and Gerry’s’.  At the end of the next, it was ‘Dan the tennis coach was also present, as were a handful of other male guests’.  ‘And Gerry’, for that matter, it doesn’t, doesn’t explicitly say that Gerry was playing some tennis, which he was.  So ‘Dan the tennis coach was also present’, err, ‘as were Dave, Matt, Gerry and several other male guests’.  It’s probably worth, I don’t think they, I’m not sure whether the kids were still awake or not.  I think by the time Jane left to go down the kids were in bed but they hadn’t been in bed and asleep for as long as, as we’d normal had, just to make sure that they were definitely settled, but I suppose that’s too, too critical.  ‘The children were awake’, I know the children were only just in bed”.
1578    “’The children were awake’, you want it to say ‘The children’?”
Reply    “’The children were only just in bed when Jane went down to the restaurant around half’, well, ‘The children had not long been in bed when Jane went down to the restaurant around’, err, we were late, so I think I’ve said twenty thirty to twenty forty there, we were late, so, I mean, you could lose the ‘twenty thirty’.  Because we played tennis a lot later and Jane was trying to get them bathed and bed and on her own it invariably takes a lot longer than when the two of us did it”.
1578    “Sorry, ‘Jane went to the restaurant around’?”
Reply    “I think, it says ‘around twenty thirty to twenty forty’, she did go down late, so that was the whole point, so”.
1578    “So you want to remove ‘twenty thirty’?”
Reply    “I think just say, yeah, just say it was ‘twenty forty’.  We certainly didn’t get down there bang on time.  ‘(inaudible) ten minutes or so to settle down.  Went down to the Tapas Bar’ full-stop.  Huh, Dave and Fi are going to kill us if they ever read this.  ‘Five ‘H’ were running late as usual, Dave and Fi are always late, it’s a standing joke in our group’, yeah.  Ha ha, being absolutely condemned.  ‘At nine o’clock’, okay, that’s fine.  Erm, I think you did ask me when I arrived, erm, does it say that there, yeah.  I suppose it’s probably worth saying ‘I went down to the Tapas Bar, everyone was present except the adults in five ‘H’’.  I think you’d asked me who was at the table, you know, Jane was there, Rachael and Matt were there, Kate and Gerry were there.  There wasn’t a question of anyone else missing, just, erm, from either end of the apartments”.
1578    “’I went to Tapas Bar and everyone’?”
Reply    “’Except the adult occupants of five ‘H’ were present’”.
1578    “But the children weren’t present?”
Reply    “No, no, no.  Erm, yeah, the next paragraph looks a little, erm, well it’s a bit out of order, isn’t it, is that all it says”.
1578    (inaudible)
Reply    “Okay, erm, well I’ll just go, it just looks like, erm, it goes a bit kind of strange in the order really”.
1578    “Right, yeah”.
Reply    “Erm, okay, so up until ‘The evening was the same as the evenings before.  Kate and Gerry behaving entirely normal’ is fine.  Do you mind if I have a quick wee?”
1578    “No, not at all, no”.
Reply    “I’ll be two secs”.
1578    “I shall leave the disc running”.
O’BRIEN left the interview room.
O’BRIEN returned to the interview room.
1578    “Okay?”
Reply    “Yeah.  Thanks for that”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “Erm, right”.
1578    “I think this was the point where you mentioned a timeline”.
Reply    “Oh right.  So we kind of started to describe that.  Yeah, it just seems to, it seems to, okay, well, I’ll, I’ll remember bits and just see if it seems to read in order.  Okay, yeah, I think”.
1578    “Chronologically”.
Reply    “Chronologically, in order, erm, Matt had got up, as has already been said, just to check on the rooms and also to, erm, maybe worth I suppose to say ‘Around nine o’clock Matt was going to check on Grace and the other windows as well’, because he did, he did a, he actually did a check”.
1578    “So in there then you want?”
Reply    “’Did a check on Grace’, erm, ‘and’”.
1578    “’To check on Grace’?”
Reply    “’And listen at the other windows, at the other apartment windows’, because that’s, as we said on Tuesday and in that very hastily scribbled timeline on the back of the, the kind of kids book, he was very adamant at that point that all of the external shutters appeared to be in, in the, in the down position, untampered with”.
1578    “So ‘Around twenty-one hundred hours Matt was going over to check on Grace’?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “’And listen at the other apartment windows’?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “‘So he said he would chase up the PAYNEs as we were all waiting’?”
Reply    “Who were actually already on, and they were, they crossed paths on”.
1578    “Yes.  ‘We were conscious of the waiting staff’?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “’Wanting us to place our orders’?”
Reply    “Yeah, and the next short paragraph is fine.  And I suppose what this is saying really is that obviously we, we sat, we sat down and, you know, together after the events and we tried to come up with the, the best kind of timeline collectively, but”.
1578    “Maybe chronologically that should go later in your statement?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah.  So I think, erm, maybe it started, if I just kind of, for the moment at least, I’ll remember that, but I don’t recall what time, point it was, but around, around, erm, yeah, five or ten past nine.  I think that’s the time that Gerry was actually potentially away really, erm, you know, that Gerry was away from the table, I don’t, I don’t specifically remember him sort of standing up anymore, say like eleven months on, erm, but, erm, you know, he was, erm, he was away for, you know, about sort of ten minutes or so or something like that, five or ten minutes.  But he went, he went, he went, Matt went around nine and he went around kind of five past or ten past nine”.
1578    “’I don’t recall at what time, at what point, it was around twenty-one zero five to twenty-one twenty’?”
Reply    “I think that’s, that’s almost the time that he would have been away for, not that he left as late as, erm, twenty-one twenty, yeah.  So he, he went, he was away, but, I mean, I, to be honest, you know, as I’ve said here, it’s the timeline that kind of says when Gerry went up.  Yeah, ‘Jane also went to check the children and was gone for a short time’, I think it was, to be more specific there ‘It was just a matter of a couple of minutes’.  Yeah, ‘She didn’t mention anything unusual’.  ‘After we’d eaten the starters I needed to go to the toilet and Matt and I said we would go and check on the children’, yeah.  ‘We altogether recall that the light was fading’, yeah, I think, erm, and we discussed this the other day, erm, and I did mention this to Stuart PRIOR as well, I mean, it says ‘was fading’ there, I think it was probably dark then, but I can’t actually picture the light, you were asking me about the street lights particularly”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “But when, when I was in the flat after, you know, just a little bit on from here, I can picture Matt when he came back from the flat and certainly he was standing in the doorway saying, you know, ‘Do you need any help or are you alright with Evie on your own’, it was pretty, it was, it was pretty dark outside, admittedly standing inside with the light on at this point, but it was pretty dark, it was, erm, it was fairly dark”.
1578    “So are you happy with ‘The light was fading’?”
Reply    “Yeah, well, yeah, I think it was, erm, the light, the light was, was, was quite, erm, was well on the way towards, erm, you know, dusk there.  I don’t know whether that makes it sound like it was just beginning to, beginning to get dark or whether it was actually quite dark.  I mean, I think a minute or, you know, or two after this point, where we were walking up, certainly from standing inside the apartment with Matt in the door, it looked, I can picture the background there and it was pretty dark, but then again you flick a light on and it will look dark”.
1578    “If you read on a sentence or two you should come to the point where Matt came to your apartment so we could add in it there?”
Reply    “Yeah, we could, we could add, we could add it there, yeah, okay.  ‘I went straight to five ‘D’, I could hear at the door Evie was murmuring’, well ‘at the window’ rather than ‘the door’, I think”.
1578    “Sorry, where is that?”
Reply    “Well the door is there and Evie’s in the bedroom next to it, so I would have thought we’d have heard it from, you know”.
1578    “’I could hear at the’?”
Reply    “’Hear at the window Evie was murmuring’”.
1578    “So we will substitute ‘door’ for ‘window’?”
Reply    “’Window’, yeah.  I think it’s the opposite way round really, ‘I went to the toilet to urinate’, and I knew, I knew, because Evie was awake, I was staying anyway , so ‘I went to the toilet to urinate and then checked on Evie and she had been sick’, so I think I actually went”.
1578    “Okay, I will swap those?”
Reply    “Just round, yeah.  I had a pee first because I was a little desperate.  Erm, ‘I started to clean her up and change her.  Matt came into my apartment and asked if I needed any help.  I said ‘No, go back and tell Jane that Evie was unwell’’”.
1578    “So if we include in there ‘Matt came into my apartment’?”
Reply    “Oh yeah, yeah, ‘He asked if I needed any help’.  Erm, at that point, erm, the external light was, was, was fairly low, it looked pretty dark, well I can picture Matt in the doorway and it was fairly dark”.
1578    “So your choice of words ‘pretty dark’ ‘fairly dark’?”
Reply    “’Fairly dark’.  Erm, the only other thing I can remember that we mentioned, I’m just going to see if it’s coming in the next, no, it’s not in here and I think it, I mean, we did mention it on Tuesday but it hasn’t been put here.  That, you know, given the amount of stick that, that I’ve had with the Portuguese Press for not requesting any fresh sheets for Evie, erm, I think I’d actually like to point out that the, that this wasn’t some third world, erm, apartment and it did actually have a washing machine.  And, erm, you know, we’ve been, you know, they don’t know where it’s come from, but, erm, I don’t know whether it is a question that the PJ have particularly done, but, you know, every time I translated to the PJ, erm, the Portuguese Press article, it says that we never requested any, erm, we never requested any further sheets and if they were sick all over them then how could this be true.  But it’s quite sort of staggering that eight months later then the fact that there was a washing machine in the building isn’t in there, so I would be very keen for that to be put in please”.
1578    “Okay.  So at the end of paragraph?”
Reply    “So ‘I told him to go back and tell Jane that Evie was unwell’, erm, I’d obviously cleaned her up and changed her.  Erm, I think maybe what I would do is I’d say ‘Matt came into my apartment and asked if I needed any help, I said ‘No, go back and tell Jane that Evie was unwell’’ and then, because I don’t think that I would have had time then, it was then I started, ‘I got her out, I gave her a quick wash in the bath, changed her, got the sheet off the cot’, erm, and at least, whether I started the washing machine then, but at least ‘I put them in the washing machine and then sat down with Evie’.  But I want it in there that there was a bloody washing machine in the apartment”.
1578    “’Gave Evie a quick bath’?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “’Changed her’?”
Reply    “’Changed her’ and, erm, and MARK WARNER do stretch to cleaning facilities on their holidays, so”.
1578    “’And placed bed linen’?”
Reply    “Excuse to sound so cynical, but.  ‘And placed’, well I don’t think, I don’t think I necessarily put the, I got the dirty linen and her clothes off and at least I think, you know, there was a few bits of sick and I probably gave them a rinse off in the bath and then just shoved them in the washing machine, whether I started it then or did it later I’ve no idea.  But, you know, since we’ve been”.
1578    “’And placed clothing’”.
Reply    “Suspicion has been put on us because, erm, we didn’t request any further sheets.  I think I’d rather have it in there that, erm”.
1578    “’Into the washing machine’”.
Reply    “That even as a man I can use a washing machine, staggering though that may sound.  Anyway, enough of that.  I think, erm, say ‘Jane came back, we were in the flat together for a number of minutes’, it might be worth adding, so ‘Jane came back having eaten her meal at approximately twenty-one forty’ or something like that”.
1578    “Right.  So where are we now then?”
Reply    “’I sat in the lounge and read to Evie.  Jane came back having eaten her meal’ and I thought maybe say, ‘There was probably a number of minutes, no more than five, that’, erm, ‘where we were in the flat together’”.
1578    “‘We were in the flat together for about five minutes’?”
Reply    “Yeah, it wasn’t more than that, but, erm, yeah, (inaudible) Jane having to relieve me (inaudible) Kate left the table.  Written here that ‘There was nothing significant about her leaving’, I think, I think we’d actually discussed that it wasn’t, it wasn’t a clear moment in my mind or certainly not like eleven months on, and again, you know, and again I don’t know what, what my original statement said, but certainly the comment that ‘The table was in good humour and there was nothing different about the nature or the mood there or the fact that anyone had got up and left’.  I don’t think anyone else got up and left after my return apart from, apart from Kate.  Yeah, I’d say ‘I think it would have been about ten o’clock’, I didn’t have a watch.  There was a point at this time where some, does it say here, that somebody around the table asked what the time was and I think Rachael asked and they answered that it was about ten o’clock.  That is probably worth saying, because I think, you know, there’s a little bit of, you know, erm, best, best estimate on some of the other times, there was, around the time of ten, there was actually somebody announced at the table it was about ten o’clock”.
1578    “So at the end of the paragraph?”
Reply    “’Kate left the table, there was nothing significant about her leaving, but I think it was a similar time to my meal arriving’.  Oh yeah, yeah, I suppose that’s a point, erm.  There it might say ‘The Tapas staff kindly re-cooked my main course’, because I got back at twenty-one forty-five, but the food was probably, you know, the best part of ten minutes later before I got it”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “Probably if, the last sentence, this last sentence here”.
Reply    “Oh yeah, straight after, yeah, good point, yeah.  ‘After me arriving back I waited for them to cook a fresh meal’, say, ‘which arrived perhaps twenty-one fifty-five’ or ‘approximately twenty-one fifty-five’”.
1578    “’I know that she didn’t leave’, oh okay, ‘I know that she didn’t leave straight after me arriving back’?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah, I think there was, erm, there was a period of time, yeah.  Yeah, that’s fair enough, it wasn’t sort of a question of me arriving and her going, it was a good, there was a fair amount of time before I got my food anyway.  It says there ‘And a great deal of thought he may have been watching us’, well it says ‘watching’ but I thing, erm, ‘watching us during the week’ might be more explicit about what that means”.
1578    “After ‘watching’, it is’ watching us during the week’?”
Reply    “’Watching us’, yeah, ‘during the week’.  It says ‘The only people who would have known our routine would have been the waiters’ and that’s clearly not, that’s, erm, perhaps just a bit strong, erm, you know, as I said on Tuesday, I’ve certainly got no, no reason to, to be suspicious about any particular person or, or people.  But, erm, it may be worth just, just making a statement of the fact that ‘The waiters would have been aware of our routine’, just change it to that and then it’s less, it’s less definitive than, you know, somebody else could have been watching and, you know, I think it’s just that, probably better that way”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “And then it says ‘I can’t recall whether there were any other people dining in the restaurant at the time’, erm, there, there had been other people there, it’s just I can’t, so maybe say ‘There were other people earlier on’ at least, I think because we were eating quite late and we were late, most people had eaten and gone by, by ten o’clock, but it’s, it’s, erm”.
1578    “So say that ‘There were other people’?”
Reply    “’Other people were dining earlier on but I did not recall who they were and I think we were the last, the last diners by the time that the alarm was raised’”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “‘Once we’d gone over to Gerry and Kate’s apartment’, no, that doesn’t really make sense, ‘Listened at the door’, no, erm, I didn’t listen at the door, I’m not sure what, that’s sort of a bit, erm”.
1578    “I think this is when you went in earlier in the week, isn’t it?”
Reply    “I think there is a bit of, erm, you, I think at this point you, you actually got the, the, tut, erm, the diagram out and just, just pointed some things out perhaps.  But, erm, no, I mean, this is all, all a bit peculiar, erm”.
1578    “’Once we’d gone over to Gerry and Kate’s apartment’?”
Reply    “’Some people went up the steps and entered the apartment’.  This is, this is a bit out of place, isn’t it, really”.
1578    “Can you just bear with me.  ‘Some people went up the steps and entered the apartment’ and take out ‘listened at the door’?”
Reply    “Yeah, ‘Some remained at the porch entry’, ‘at the’, erm, I keep saying porch, ‘at the foot of the stairs’, is probably the best one.  And then the rest of this paragraph needs to go entirely somewhere else, doesn’t it, erm, it’s actually describing the apartment, erm, and, and actually the visits”.
1578    “Do you remember when you did go into the apartment?”
Reply    “Sunday night.  Oh you mean on the night?”
1578    “On the Sunday night”.
Reply    “Erm”.
1578    “I think here we’re referring to the”.
Reply    “The night in questions.  But then, then, then, this is actually my description of, you were saying what else was in the room, you had the plan out at some point, although it seems that this has, this has somehow kind of migrated to a different part of the, erm, the order, I think by the time we are here we didn’t double back and start talking about my visit in the room, but.  This perhaps might be best”.
1578    “So this visit into the apartment, certainly this sentence ‘I didn’t go into the apartment from what I can recall (inaudible)’, oh sorry, no”.
Reply    “Yeah, I went into the apartment on Sunday.  This is almost like a fusion of, of the two things.  I mean, I didn’t go into the apartment directly after the alarm had been raised, I don’t think, we just sort of got to the, the exit, some people had gone in and some of us kind of formulated ‘Right, where shall we’, ‘We’ll have a quick look around while they’re checking the apartment’.  So this is, this is partly looking back at when you were, you had the plan out and said, you know, ‘Was there anywhere big like a wardrobe where you could hide’”.
1578    “Yes”.
Reply    “And then I described, erm, what I’d done on my Sunday check on their kids, when I actually did go in through the patio door and from, I’d, I’d come in through the patio door here and gone across sort of diagonally to the, the room where the children were and then just sort of listened at the door without actually entering.  And then you said ‘What else was in the room’ and then I described that there was a table, sort of, I think a wooden table, a kind of traditional sort of table, and some seated area nearer, nearer the door and that the overall layout of the flat was very similar to the one that me and Jane were staying in, in terms of symmetry, the size of the rooms, but the furniture and the fittings were, were very different, because they were all individual flats, I think leased by MARK WARNER.  Erm, so I’m not quite sure where, where that lot could go.  But that’s, you know, I suppose it’s on the video record anyway now.  Erm, on the Sunday night I entered via the, via the patio, just went to the frame of the door and listened in the room, I didn’t actually go in.  Erm, and what I said then really, that the flat was very similar to ours in, in its layout, symmetry and, erm, and size, but the fittings were entirely different”.
1578    “And, I suppose, chronologically, we can include that to your Sunday night”.
Reply    “Yeah, chronologically, that could”.
1578    “We can move”.
Reply    “The description of the flat and what I thought the furniture was, erm, and the fact that it resembled very, almost identically in fact, the, the layout of our flat”.
1578    “On the Sunday night”.
Reply    “Umm”.
1578    “So that can be moved to earlier in the statement?”
Reply    “Yes, the Sunday night, yeah”.
1578    “So if we continue chronologically then”.
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “The alarm has been raised?”
Reply    “The alarm has been raised and then it, unfortunately it does then double back”.
1578    “’I didn’t go into the apartment’?”
Reply    “Yeah, no, I didn’t go, yeah, okay, so we’re back to that bit.  ‘I didn’t go into the apartment’ and then the rest, at this point, the rest of that’s irrelevant, the whole of that, in fact the whole of that paragraph is then irrelevant at that point.  Yeah, I suppose that might be best just the start of.  ‘On this evening I was wearing’, yeah, they’re, erm, I don’t know you’d describe them, they’re kind of, they’re not, they’re not quite jeans, but, yeah, they’re a kind of a mix, I’d say sort of a mix of material, ‘and a stripy shirt’, it’s not a ‘top’, it was a ‘shirt’, it was similar to the one I’ve got on here”.
1578    “’A pale striped shirt’ shall we call that?”
Reply    “Yeah, erm, ‘greens and browns’”.
1578    “Okay”.
Reply    “Erm, ‘Jane had taken my jumper which was blue’, yeah, a sort of smock style jumper I’ll describe it as and she had that on at some point”.
1578    “’A smock jumper’?”
Reply    “Yeah, one of these ones that, you know, that have a, a relatively, a naval kind of feel to the collar, it’s a weird, sort of a weird fish”.
1578    “Are you happy with ‘smock type jumper’?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah.  Phew, ‘I’m quite used the cold’, I don’t know whether I’m quite used to the cold, maybe ‘I tend not to feel the cold’, ha ha”.
1578    “Okay.  ‘I tend not to”.
Reply    “Erm, because these paragraphs are a little bit out of the flow, but (inaudible), fine, okay, that’s fine.  ‘When I went to check the children I went to my flat first and then Matt walked on to his flat five ‘B’, I believe that he then went to check the McCANN’s children’, perhaps that paragraph just needs to be lifted to the appropriate point on the last page”.
1578    “I think at some point we are going to get to the phase where we were asking you direct questions”.
Reply    “Yeah.  Okay.  I mean, at least, fact, you know, factually, there’s no, I don’t think there’s anything, erm, the only problem with that paragraph ‘Went to the children, went to my flat first, then Matt walked on to flat five ‘B’, I believe he then went to check the McCANN’s children, he was gone for sixty to ninety seconds’, erm, that’s slightly wrong, erm, ‘He went to my flat first, then Matt walked on to his flat five ‘B’, he was gone for sixty to ninety seconds before asking if I needed any help’.  So he went to his flat five ‘B’ and was away for, you know, a small portion of time, just enough really for me to have, have been to the toilet really, and then he came back to my flat after that sixty to ninety seconds and then, erm, said ‘Do you need any help’, I said ‘No, just tell Jane that’, you know, ‘Evie is unwell and come back when she’s done’.  And then he went”.
1578    “Right.  So”.
Reply    “Then, and this is only from, you know, this is not from a first hand account, but then he went to check on Kate and Gerry on the way back”.
1578    “Yes.  So if I could just go through that ‘When I went to check the children I went to my flat first’?”
Reply    “Uh hu”.
1578    “’Then Matt walked to his flat five ‘B’”.
Reply    “Uh hu”.
1578    “Is that okay?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “’I believe that he then went’”.
Reply    “No, no, that’s, that’s, that’s out of order there.  ‘After sixty to ninety seconds he returns to flat five ‘D’’”.
1578    “’After sixty to ninety secs’?”
Reply    “’He returns to five ‘D’, checks if I need any help, I say no and then I believe he went on to check the McCANN children’.  And then ‘This is the final check before Madeleine was noticed missing’”.
1578    “’Checks if I needed help, I said no, I believe he then went’?”
Reply    “’To check on the McCANN children’.  Erm, and then we’re back in the , I mean, this is, I suppose all of this is just second hand information anyway, from my point of view, it says ‘This is the final check before Madeleine was noticed missing.  Nothing appeared to be unusual and there was nothing that suggested we were being watched’, it’s all a little, erm, it’s mainly kind of repetition and out of order.  I don’t know quite what the, there was no mention of the shutters being checked at five, at five ‘A’, erm, I’m not quite sure what hat’s referring to, but, in any case it’s going to be a comment from, from Matt.  Erm, when we were talking about the timeline at some point, I don’t know whether that sort of cropped up here, Matt certainly made a comment that there was no suggestion that the shutters had been tampered with at nine o’clock, I’m not quite, I mean, I, I don’t think, you know, he went in through the patio door and well you’ve spoken to him anyway, but I don’t really know whether this is relevant to my testimony anyway”.
1578    “So you would like to remove this then?”
Reply    “Well I don’t”.
1578    “If we remove”.
Reply    “Yeah, from”.
1578    “’This is the final check before Madeleine was noticed missing’ if we remove that?”
Reply    “Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, it’s mainly me just commenting on what Matt said”.
1578    “If we remove the remainder of the paragraph?”
Reply    “Yeah”.
1578    “Down to ‘five ‘A’’?”
Reply    “Yeah, I mean, I’m not quite sure what that’s sort of referring to there and, as I say, Matt did the check, not me”.
1578    “Okay.  I think at that point, we are getting close to the end of the tape, it might be an idea to have a comfort break”.
Reply    “Yeah, okay”.
1578    “Before we continue”.
Reply    “We’re getting there”.
1578    “Yes, we are”.
Reply    “So the time is ten fifty am and this interview is ceasing”.

Filed under: Documents, Madeleine McCann, Duarte Levy, Interview, Jane Tanner, Leicestershire, Maddie, Madeleine McCann, Missing, PJ, police, Policia Judiciaria, Portugal, Russell O'Brien